Dan Neil of the Los Angeles Times likes an adventure. So much so that he planned a six-day solo hike against Joshua Tree National Park. Along for the 75-mile trek were a few important pieces of technology, with our Colorado 400t playing a vital role. Here are a few excerpts, but you'll have to read the whole story to see where Dan's journey takes him.

"To navigate 75 miles of gorgeous but punishing chaparral, I've brought along a Garmin Colorado 400t GPS unit, with which I've electronically marked the water caches I buried earlier in the week while driving across the park," Dan writes. "If I fail to find even one of these caches, I will wind up very miserable or worse."

On day one, Dan begins at Black Rock Canyon and finds that "the gentle uphill slope that seems so manageable in the orderly 3-D topographic display of the Garmin turns out to be a thigh-killing trudge through ankle-deep kitty litter."

And Dan appreciated the abundance data packed into his handheld. "With all its easy-to-sort readouts -- odometer, altitude and real-time guidance to way points -- the Garmin seems like an utterly vital piece of equipment."

When he needed it most at the end of his day, Dan's Colorado came through. "I switch on the Garmin to find my first way point, where I've cached a 2-gallon bag of water," Dan writes. "The device's little floating arrow guides me to within 3 feet of the rock under which I hid it."

Because we want to save some of the drama -- and there's plenty as Dan's journey continues -- we won't spoil the ending. Just click here to see how Dan fares.